


To Fill The Spaces

by em5182



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrinette, Angst, F/M, Flashback, Fluff, Memories, Some Fluff, Some angst, Subway, Train Rides, adrien’s mom, train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 01:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19713931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em5182/pseuds/em5182
Summary: Adrien just needs a little bit of loving. A piece of loving to fill the spaces. The spaces left by his mom. The spaces that were never filled by his father. The space that burnt the most when he was alone.





	To Fill The Spaces

Adrien never used the subway. He never needed to. He always had his bodyguard take him everywhere per demands of his father. Today was different. Today he just wanted to get away. He just wanted a time to himself. For himself. And for no one else. To think. To bring him back to his senses. To re-route back to the right track.

Adrien was slumped over in his seat. He had his arm on the ledge of the window, his chin resting on the palm of his hand. He was watching the black tunnels pass by like streaks of shades of the dark mirroring his mood and expression. His face was reflected off the window. He was staring back at it. But he wasn’t at the same time. His brain was ignoring everything.

Even Plagg had sensed Adrien wanting to be alone. And so, he was respecting that. He was just glancing worriedly at his chosen from the opening of Adrien’s chest pocket. Adrien had this lost, thoughtful look on his face.

Today was the day from a year ago when she never came back. Today was the day she never came home. Today was the day Adrien couldn’t find his mom. He had barely seen his father that day. That day, his father seemed to be all over the place. He was moving here and there in the times he actually saw his father that day.

That was the day, something inside him left. Just like when a close relative of yours is no longer with you, they leave an empty space. Something inside of Adrien went missing that day. Just like how his mom went mysteriously missing. It left an empty space.

It was… something he never wanted to live through again. That morning, it felt like his whole world had fallen apart. Nobody would answer his questions. _Nobody_. Nobody answered his questions with answers he wanted to hear. He knew they were lying. They were hiding something. But he hadn’t had the energy to bother them. He hadn’t had the energy because he was wallowing inside. He was suffering alone.

A year later, Adrien had stopped asking questions. He had tried to accept that she was gone. But… it was easier to hide the thought down under his bed. Deep down inside him. Where he didn’t have to remember.

But some things, small things, trigger those memories. It just had to be a coincidence that today was the day Adrien knew she wasn’t coming back.

* * *

  
He was at the park. It was a sort of gloomy setting for his father’s upcoming dark theme. The clouds were gray and the air was cold. The cold, however, wasn’t the relieving, refreshing type. It was stuffy and suffocating. It looked like it was about to rain.

A sudden noise, a slap on the cemented ground of the sidewalk, had caught his attention. Just when he was about to rush to help the little girl, a blur of pink ran by.

“Manon!” The girl cried. When she stopped to help pick up the girl on the ground, Adrien could see clearly that the blur of pink, was Marinette.

The girl on the ground was the kid Marinette babysits. She had fallen on both hands to catch herself. Unfortunately, her palms got scraped. It was red and irritated, it was slowly oozing out blood. Manon was crying.

“Oh, Manon,” Marinette sympathized as she gently took the tiny hands on hers to examine. “You have to be more careful.”

Adrien watches the whole encounter. Marinette took out a piece of cloth from her handbag. She carefully dabbed the cloth on Manon’s wound which caused her to flinch.

“Owie! It’s owie!” Manon whined.

“I’m sorry, Manon,” Marinette withdrew her cloth.

But she didn’t give up right there, she ever so gently brought Manon’s hands up close to her mouth and she blew. She blew softly. Manon’s crying minimized a bit.

“Better?”

Manon sniffled and nodded her head. Marinette softly smiled. She smiled and she smiled. It was a gentle smile. A kind of smile that could make someone’s day. The kind of smile that’s reassuring. Caring. Loving.

Adrien hadn’t realized… how much Marinette’s smile… reminded him… of her. His mom.

He remembers… when he would get cuts and wounds by accidents, his mother would do the exact same as what Marinette has done to Manon. She would blow on the wound and kiss it. “Mommy’s magic kisses,” as two-year old Adrien would call it.

He remembers when he got a cut on his twelfth birthday, his mother would tease him.

“Oh, so your a big boy now? You don’t need any more of ‘mommy’s magic kisses?” His mom would mock baby talk to him.

“Mom!” Adrien’s face was red from embarrassment.

They were sharing a cake. Just the two of them. It was with twelve candles. He remembers what time it was too. He had made a joke about 1-2-3-4 because it was exactly 12:34 noon.

His mother laughed which made him laugh too. After their laughter died down, she smiled. She smiled this smile Adrien thought was so pretty. His mother was beautiful. She was looking at him like she adored him. She was loving him. And he felt loved.

A mother’s love… was unlike any other after all.

* * *

  
Adrien rubbed his eyes. He was back on the sub. That memory brought back many other memories of his mother. Her disappearance just happened to be one of them, remembering that significant day from a year ago. The day that was coincidentally today.

Adrien asked his bodyguard to not tell on him that he was taking the subway. He must’ve looked very miserable since he had doubted his bodyguard would allow him to have some time to himself. But his bodyguard did, he allowed him to go.

He found himself thinking about Marinette too. Marinette was beautiful. Just like his mother. She was caring. Just like his mother. She was gentle. She was soft. She was warm. She was brave. She was determined. She reminded him of his mom.

The movement of the train kept on moving and stopping. Every stop, the door would open and people would move in or out. He stopped counting at two stops. He wasn’t going anywhere. He had no destination.

He didn’t want to go home just yet. He wanted some more time to think was all. He stopped paying attention to people after the second stop. He was already too deep in thought to notice.

But from the corner of his eye, he spotted pink. His eyes quickly followed the color from the reflection on his window.

It was Marinette. She sat diagonally across from him. But she was still close enough for him to see her through his reflection. She doesn’t seem to have noticed he was there. Adrien watched her from the window. She looks like she just came in. She was taking off a pink-polka dotted raincoat and was shaking off rain.

That’s when she noticed him. Adrien quickly looked back, which was a mistake since they both made eye contact and Adrien couldn’t pull away. They both blushed under each other’s gaze.

And Marinette gave that smile. That same smile that makes his heart sink in both a painful way and… rise with something else.

He could feel his eyes soften, and his gaze water as he remembered his mother once more. Marinette’s eyes turn to worry. He didn’t like seeing that. He didn’t like people worrying about him or giving him pity.

He watched as Marinette scurried across to reach him and in the blink of his eye, Marinette was sitting right next to him. She was peering at him with big eyes. It was as if she was checking if he was physically hurt anywhere. Or if she was checking if he was okay mentally.

Adrien was waiting for the question. Are you okay? Everybody seemed to be asking him that. Truth was, he didn’t know how to answer that question. He doesn’t even think he has an answer for that. The answer would always be changing, never constant.

Marinette was about to touch his hand, as he could see, but hesitated and withdrew. She was moving her eyes all over the place, from her hands to her feet to him. It was like she was thinking of something to say but couldn’t find the right words. She had opened her mouth two or more times.

“I-Is… is there anything I can do?”

“...What?” Adrien was now looking at her. He was always looking at her. But this time, it was with a different… feeling? Emotion?

“W-what can I say? W-what can I do to make you feel… better?” Marinette places her hand on top of his now, “I don’t know if you… know this… but, ever since I met you, my life… has been so much better. You make me look forward to life.”

Adrien didn’t know how to interpret this. This was the first time… someone had actually stopped to tell him… how much they appreciated… him. It filled something inside of him.

Marinette closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, “Laughing with you… you, you lighten up my spirits. You take away my anxieties. You are a gift to my heart. As cheesy as that sounds…”

Adrien chuckles.

“You… you make my world… so much better.” Marinette drops her voice to a low but soft tone, “You’re that someone for me but I don’t know… if you have someone like that in your world.”

Adrien didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know he meant that much to Marinette. It made him feel… special. And he hasn’t felt that… loved… since his mother.

She really does remind him of her.

“I do—well, I did.”

“O-oh…”

“She was my mother,” Adrien didn’t know why but he wanted to share something personal to Marinette. She was someone he felt safe with. She was someone he felt like he could talk to about anything. “My mother made my world so much better…”

Marinette was listening intently.

“...and when she disappeared, so did my whole world.”

Marinette clutched his hand, reminding him that she was there. That… his whole world hadn’t disappeared.

“You know, you remind me of her.”

Marinette blushes crimson at the compliment. Adrien stares. For a moment, his mother was gone. But maybe… Marinette could fill the space he was missing all this time.

With her big heart, he knows there’s space for him in there. He sees it. He sees it when he looks in her eyes. He sees it when he watches her smile.

The train stops.

Marinette takes back her hand. Adrien was already missing it’s warmth. “This is where I get off.”

She grabs something from the floor.

“Y-you come want? I-I mean, d-do you want to come— with me?” Marinette stutters as she fidgets with the item she picked up in the floor.

Adrien looks at the item then up to her. He had nothing better to do so why not. Adrien gives her a smile and stands up. Marinette’s smile grows and they exit the subway together.

It was pouring when they reached the top of the stairs. Adrien reaches out a hand to feel the rain.

Adrien was suddenly hit by a sense of deja vu. He looks with hope to his right where Marinette was by his side. She gives him a smug, side smile, but it was somehow gentle and soft.

Smoothly, almost cockily, Marinette opens the black umbrella, the one identical to the umbrella he had given her at the start of the school year. When they actually, properly met.

Adrien smirks teasingly, “That’s my line.”

Marinette cutely shrugs under the umbrella. Adrien rolls his eyes.

Marinette gives him a soft smile. It was the same damn smile.

But it was less painful this time.

Adrien stares into Marinette’s bluebell eyes. He never realized how beautiful they were.

He steps forward and under the umbrella. He holds Marinette’s hand. The one on the handle of the umbrella.

Marinette flinches at the touch but soon eases into it. He couldn’t blame her. He felt something. Something like electricity when their hands touched. Oddly enough, he didn’t want to let go.

Under the rain, with Marinette by his side, the missing empty space, felt filled now. And since last year, this was the most he had felt alive.

He felt loved again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a sequel to “Let Me Take Your Coat” (well, it’s more of Adrien’s view/dilemma. It was Ladybug’s dilemma in the other fic, while this is Adrien’s.) but it can be read separately. Also this fic was inspired by this song: Spaces- Martti Franca
> 
> Not sponsored? Haha anyway, I hope you enjoyed this short read!


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